Hensel O. - Madame Blavatsky
MADAME BLAVATSKY
Blavatsky was a comic woman; that, at least, was my impression of her.
We, her friends, are speaking of the real Blavatsky, not the Blavatsky of the newspapers. She looked like everything — like a man, a woman, a sibyl, an animal, a reptile, a horse, a lion, a toad; there was something very toad-like in her. I used to tell her she was the best-dressed big woman I ever saw. She thought I was laughing at her; but it was true, for she was the only big woman I ever saw who did not try to dress. Some great folds of cloth covered her — that was all; the seamless garment of the Orient, with burnous wrapped round her head when she went out, although she seldom did go out; six months would often pass without her setting foot outside the house.
She remains a memory of the greatest personal power I have ever seen, and I have often remarked how, when in the Theosophic chapel Annie Besant gave one of her magnificent impassioned orations, with Blavatsky on the platform behind her, puffing a cigarette and occasionally ejaculating a comment, one went away filled with the personality of Blavatsky rather than of Besant.
Mrs. Besant herself seemed to feel in her a source of power, for she would sit evening after evening holding Madame Blavatsky’s hand, not even dropping it when she rose to receive visitors. Mme. Blavatsky was essentially feminine; she was all a woman, and a good deal of a man. Everybody who came in contact with “H.P.B.”, as she best liked to be called, loved her; I’ve often taken friends to see her who would tremble at the door and say: “I cannot go in, I dread her power,” but soon after entering they would be sitting on an ottoman at her feet, caressing her hand, feeling like children in the protecting shadow of a great mountain.
Her frankness was delightful; she no more tried to dress up her mind and heart than she did her body. She lived in mental and moral nudity, which was so bewildering to most people that it became more mysterious than mystery. She lived further from hypocrisy than anyone I have ever seen — absolutely fearless in opinion, without regard to whom she was speaking. She had many original interpretations of Bible passages; her interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis was marvellous.
When I explained it to a ministerial friend, he said: “I would rather my boy should be taught this than what they give him at Sunday school.” This at least had philosophy and faith in it.
Above all, Christians should welcome her interpretation of the cry of Christ on the cross — words which, by some unknown error of translators, she read not “My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” but “My God, how Thou hast glorified Me!” This translation, which I also heard from Madame Blavatsky, seemed to me most probable. Perfect human faith never doubts; Christ’s nature was human, His faith was perfect; the splendor of His self-renunciation was perfect; His death-cry was triumphant.
She cried with a loud voice (had He spoken softly, it would have shown humility): “How Thou hast glorified Me!”
Mme. Blavatsky was a great student of the Bible and had much reverence for the teachings of Christ, but none for the Christian church.
Much has been said of her fits of passion, but in them was an interesting study. Some people, when aroused, reveal hidden depths of malignity and evil, and you feel you have been deceived in them. Her passion was like that of the tempest — you even bent against it. In the severest bursts of passion she would often strike herself on the forehead and say, “What a fool I am! You are right and I am wrong; my dear friend, forgive me.”
Speaking of some attacks made upon her, she said, “I am so glad to be hated; I would not like to live not being cursed and spoken against by some.”
Her greatest beauty was the motion of her hands, which were very graceful, made so perhaps through the constant rolling of cigarettes. Her eyes were like chrysoprase. Every morning she was at home to receive her friends; while talking she played a constant game of solitaire upon the card table beside her. I do not think she ever played whist. Her conversation was far more interesting to those who had the privilege of listening to it than the silence of the whist table.
The members of her family who visited her in London were very distinguished and interesting people; among them I particularly recall the princely Dolgoroukis. The household was the most hospitable I have ever seen; in truth, the only grandly hospitable one. The family consisted of only six members, but the table was laid daily for twenty people, and all friends had a standing invitation to join her at breakfast, dinner, or supper.
(by H. Schmiechen)[2]
The welcome was simple — in fact, no welcome at all. The table was abundantly covered with many strange dishes. People reached across it, helped themselves, walked around it if they saw anything they wanted, or changed their chairs so as to sit by two or three different friends in the course of a meal. The Countess Wachtmeister, who presided over this meal, was a very lovely woman. She looked like pictures of the Madonna. The best likeness of Madame Blavatsky was painted by Hermann Lehmbrecher[3], the German artist so much in vogue in London of late years.
Many friends speak of Madame as they knew her, which was during the last two years of her life. “During that time,” they say — and I am glad to confirm their words — “I never saw her in any other attitude than that of a great philosopher and teacher, a student with a knowledge of religious mysteries of all ages and peoples.”
I never saw the slightest attempt at humbug, assumption of spiritual powers, mystery, or materialization. People will say: “But have you not heard the wonderful story of the door knob? Have you not heard about what she did with the handle of the coal scuttle?” I am obliged to reply: “Yes, I’ve heard and read, but must speak only of what I saw myself.”
Let me quote Madame’s own words on the subject. One evening, at a meeting, a member of the circle said: “Madame, would you not like me to tell how I witnessed in India the wonderful materialization of the cup and saucer, and the Japanese silk handkerchief?” She replied: “My dear sir, I beg of you never to repeat those stories again; they have done me harm enough already. If you and others had given to the world my explanations of those phenomena instead of your impressions, I should not be looked upon as the old fool I am now. I told you they were tricks on the physical plane, as the juggler performs on the physical plane; you preferred to think me a goddess, to see in me a wonderful divine power, but some real spiritual things, my dear sir, were happening at that time, which passed right before you, and you never saw them.”
Speaking of the Society for Psychical Research, which sent out a mission to India to ask her to produce her Mahatmas, she said: “I asked the gods to perform for them and they refused.”
Calling upon her one day and finding she was engaged, I went to the library, and for two hours was so lost in interesting research that I did not hear a step behind me until I heard her say: “What are you reading?” I replied: “Esoteric Buddhism and the Occult World.” “I have never read them before,” she said. “I am very sorry you have read them now; I am very sorry that the world ever read them; they misrepresented me.”
“One evening,” says Mr. Edmund Russell, “being present at a reception in the home of Thomas Carlyle, I witnessed some of the performances of the celebrated Katie Fox. I stood with my hands on both sides of the door; was told (of course) that Charlotte Cushman was always with me. The next day I said to Madame Blavatsky: ‘I heard some spirit rappings last night for the first time. What are they like?’ She asked: ‘They were raps that shook the door from head to foot, louder than I can make with any clenched fist?’ I replied: ‘Oh, that was Katie Fox.’ I told her of the self-exposition given by the Fox sisters in America, and asked: ‘Could Katie Fox explain that if she tried?’ ‘No,’ said Madame, ‘she is simply an instrument and knows nothing of the source of her power.’
I once asked Madame if there was anything spiritual about these manifestations. She replied: ‘Nothing whatever. Many undiscovered forces exist in man, as in nature. There is an electric force latent in all men appearing in some abnormal examples; as yet we know neither how to use nor how to control it. It will become one of the powers of the sixth race soon to follow ours.’
A friend said to her: ‘Much is written of your powers, Madame, and especially of the wondrous astral bell whose sound used to float in the air when you gathered your disciples; was that spiritual or physical?’ She replied: ‘It was physical. Of the same nature as the manifestations of Katie Fox. Yes, of the same nature, but a higher order.’
‘Why do you never use it now?’ ‘If I have to use the physical force to such powers, any attempt might kill me.’
This great woman had many enemies, as all frank people have; she was often deceived, as all generous natures are; she had not very high powers of discrimination with people, or rather did not use them; she gave all who approached her, and, wrapped up entirely in her work, she looked upon the world as a queen upon her subjects, saluting them all, responding to their homage, but making no distinction in their favor.
Inconsistent she may have appeared at times, but she was lovable and beloved — a great, good woman, who scorned to sacrifice her life and nature to the world’s idea of consistency, which she despised, saying it was the “last resort of the unimaginative.”
A new face to her was as a cup held up in which to pour something, and was receptive or unreceptive. She went no further; never questioned whether she was talking to a common-place or a deceitful person.
She lived in great truth, yet was called a liar; in great generosity, and was called a fraud; in detestation of all shams, and yet was crowned the Queen of Humbugs.
Footnotes
- ↑ This could be Mary Alice Seymour, American musician, author, elocutionist, and critic, who used such a pen and stage name.
- ↑ This image is absent in the original arcticle.
- ↑ Hermann Schmiechen is probably meant.
Original newspaper
